Tired, but so what?

I watched both NFL Championship Games yesterday, including my San Francisco 49ers ridiculously thrilling comeback win over the Detroit Lions, even though it didn't finish until just before sun-up. Yes - I have failed to learn from previous experiences and thrown my sleep patterns sideways for the purposes of sport. And yes - I did sit on the sofa at 3am thinking "Well, they've blown it again for the 3rd year running" only to be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
But I'm aware that the percentage of readers who follow American Football is probably rather low, so I shall leave that there and tell you about other events this weekend.

Philippa took the boys out on Saturday afternoon to visit an old work chum who has two children of similar age to ours, but with both being girls. I took advantage of the quiet to watch "The Sting" - one of my all-time favourite films - which turned up unexpectedly in the ITV4 weekend schedule. Still as amazing as it ever was, 50 years after its creation. On Philippa's return, I cooked some macaroni cheese with bacon (a new favourite of Mathew's) and opened a bottle of Australian wine. Philippa was in a strangely reflective mood and I made the terrible error that many married men make in that position - I asked her what was on her mind. She proceeded to tell me how wonderful her friend's house is, and how wonderfully well she seems to be coping with parenthood, and what a wonderful mum she is, and generally doing that thing of unfairly comparing herself to others who are in similar, but also very different, situations. I pointed out that she is an amazing mum, and has just qualified as a purveyor of sports massages, but it didn't seem to help. Then it took a stranger turn where she was saying how much easier it seems to be to have daughters instead of sons, which I do not agree with and have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Then she was saying how well Mathew got on with Angelica, the horribly named girl in the house who is only two months younger in age, and kept highlighting how good Mathew was with her, and how much calmer he seemed to be with a young female presence around while he was playing. So I said, "Well, it sounds like you're planning ahead and getting ready to marry him off to Angelica!" and she replied, "No, actually, I was thinking it might do him good to have a younger sister."

So I'm sure you can understand why I wanted to stay away from the bedroom, and sat alone watching the NFL all night instead...

RC 29-1-24